At the European Planetary Science Conference in Nantes, France, NASA's Dawn spacecraft is giving scientists a lot to talk about as it continues to provide new images and data about the intriguing dwarf planet Ceres.
"Ceres continues to amaze, yet puzzle us, as we examine our multitude of images, spectra and now energetic particle bursts," said Chris Russell, Dawn principal investigator at the University of California, Los Angeles, according to the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Dawn has sent a new Ceres map, in false color, which shows in stark clarity the compositional differences present on the surface. The Occator (oh-KAH-tor) crater, home of Ceres' brightest spots is vivid in color-coded topographic images. While scientists work out what creates these unique forms on Ceres, they are puzzled by images of a cone-shaped 6-mile-high (4-kilometer-high) mountain.
Images taken using infrared (920 nanometers), red (750 nanometers) and blue (440 nanometers) spectral filters are combined to create the false-color mineral maps.
"Redder colors indicate places on Ceres' surface that reflect light strongly in the infrared, while bluish colors indicate enhanced reflectivity at short (bluer) wavelengths; green indicates places where albedo, or overall brightness, is strongly enhanced," say officials explain the maps, according to University Today.
"The irregular shapes of craters on Ceres are especially interesting, resembling craters we see on Saturn's icy moon Rhea. They are very different from the bowl-shaped craters on Vesta," said Carol Raymond, Dawn's deputy principal investigator based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., reports Europlanet.
At present, Dawn is orbiting Ceres at a distance of 1,470 km, and capturing images of the surface of Ceres, a 950 km wide dwarf planet sitting in the Solar System's asteroid belt, every 11 days. Launched on Sept. 27, 2007 by a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta II Heavy rocket from Space Launch Complex-17B (SLC-17B) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, Dawn will drop to its final altitude of 375 km above the surface of Ceres in October.
"There's an interesting blue ring here. We have absolutely no idea what that blue ring is due to," said Russell during a news conference, according to the BBC.
Dawn will stop operations sometime in mid-to-late 2016. But the probe will become a permanent part of the Ceres sky, as it is expected to stay in a stable orbit around the dwarf planet.
"We're not going to leave Ceres. We're going to stay in Ceres orbit forever," Russell said.
